There’s this strange idea that people want to read about people their age or younger. This idea that nobody wants to see or hear about anyone over 30. That the audience wishes to recapture their youth and not be reminded that they are growing older.
Put that way, it does seem, as the article states, to be a reflection of the broader trend in media--the heroes and heroines in action movies are also quite young (they may be played by actors in their late thirties or early forties, but the characters are typically youthful--or, if not, exceptional for their age). There's not really any escaping that.
It's possible that this also has roots in an effort to make the stories more believable; while there are older athletes, on the whole it's a young person's game. There's only one George Foreman.
And it's true that, the older you get, the less likely your body would be to recover from the sort of abuse most heroes are given. (I'm no athlete, but I am forty-five now, and about five years ago my left knee decided its job is to periodically remind me of what I'd done to it in a college weight training class twenty years earlier. I can only imagine the sorts of things that would be coming back to haunt a forty-something superhero.)
The only hero I can think of who does seem to feel the effects of his age is Moon Knight--it was kind of refreshing, seeing him barely able to get down the stairs the day after a night's work beating up the bad guys. But Moon Knight is far from typical, and his title has made a point of saying that he and his cast of characters are old, and worn, and tired. Still makes for a good story, though.
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